Occupational Therapy Definition for the General Public (English)


What is occupational therapy?

Occupational therapy (OT) is an allied health profession. The word ‘occupation’ refers to all activities that we do in our daily life such as bathing, dressing, job or school related activities, play, hobby, etc. When a health problem affects a person’s ability to do daily activities, OT can help overcome the difficulties by improving his/her skills, learning a modified method, and/or modifying the environment. Some treatment tools used in OT include activities of daily living training, cognitive training, exercises, group therapy, hand therapy, home modification, play therapy, sensorimotor activities, splinting, and vocational training. Occupational therapy is suitable for patients of all age groups.


This definition was developed by Indian Occupational Therapists Think Tank (IOTT) as a resource for occupational therapy (OT) practitioners and students in India. This definition may be used to explain OT to the general public. It was drafted by a group of highly qualified and experienced occupational therapists originally graduated from India and are currently practicing/teaching/regulating OT either in India or abroad. Further, this definition was field tested through a survey that was sent to 50 individuals who are not related to the field of healthcare. The age range of the sample spanned from 18 to 70 years. Of these 48 individuals either strongly agreed or agreed that the definition was clear, simple and easy to understand, and 43 individuals either strongly agreed or agreed that this definition provides an idea of OT.  After the review and deliberation of comments made by survey respondents, the definition was officially adopted by the IOTT on April 12, 2020. 
Note: This is not a scientific definition. For academic and/or research purposes, please refer to the definitions published by the World Federation of Occupational Therapists and/or All India Occupational Therapy Association. 
This definition is published under the Creative Commons (CC) license. Hence, it can be freely circulated, shared, or used with the attribution to the author (IOTT). 

Location: India

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 15, 2020 at 10:10 AM

    Really it's very simple and easily understood by common public to know about occupational therapy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ishwar PatidarApril 17, 2020 at 6:17 AM

    Nice

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dr.Janarthanan SrinivasanMay 18, 2021 at 8:10 AM

    50 samples is not enough to prove this definition. atleast you should have collected minimum of 100 samples.

    do the non related healthcare as understood this terms.

    1.cognitive training,
    2.group therapy,
    3.hand therapy,
    4.sensorimotor activities,
    5.splinting,
    vocational training.


    if it is possible can you share your study through mail. if you give permission, i will take the same survey in my locality tamilnadu.

    i am janarthanan srinivasan(occupational therapist)
    chennai, tamilnadu
    mail id: jana_1882@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. IOTTTJune 12, 2021 at 7:11 PM

    Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment.

    There is no doubt that more responses would validate the definition (100 would be better than 50 and 200 would be better than 100). However, as stated above 48/50 respondents stated that the definition is clear and 43/50 stated that the definition provided them an idea about OT. If we were to get mixed responses, we would have gathered more responses or amended the definition before adoption. For your question related to the comprehension of terms by respondents, we believe they understood them as they responded to the survey affirmatively.

    The following were the questions we asked:
    1. By reading this definition, I am able to get an idea about occupational therapy. (Strongly agree/agree/neither agree nor disagree/disagree/strongly disagree)
    2. The definition is simple, clear, and easy to understand. (Strongly agree/agree/neither agree nor disagree/disagree/strongly disagree)
    3. Is there a portion of the definition that is unclear? (Yes/no)
    4. If you answered yes to the previous item, please identify the words/ phrases/ sentence that is unclear? (textbox)

    This definition was published under CC4 license. Please feel free to forward the definition to anyone you want.

    Hope this helps. On a related note, we are currently fieldtesting the Hindi version of the definitions. If you know individuals and non-OT healthprofessionals who can read and understand Hindi and would like to help IOTTT get more responses, please leave a comment here. We will give you the survey links.

    ReplyDelete

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